Wednesday, January 22, 2014

National Day of the Girl Child: Post #1: Not a Nice Place to Be In!

Deepti Menon writes about the trials and tribulations that challenge women and girls in India: rape, sexual violence and the endless blame game.

Image from Pixabay (c) Lucida

The
fiends are at it again! The dust hadn't settled after the rape of the 23-year-old
in Delhi, (and may it never do so!), when the next gang rape was committed. The
numbers of atrocities grew, as criminals, who should have quaked in their
shoes, danced in abandon over the corpses of their hapless victims!

Just
when one thought that human cruelty could not get worse, it did. A labourer
from Bihar picked up an innocent five year old girl and raped her over three
horrific days. When the poor mite was finally rescued, the doctors found
bottles and candles inside her, a scenario too gruesome to even imagine. And
yet, a monster of a man had done that, caused immense pain to an infant, confident
that he lived in a country where he could get away with it. A country where in
a gang rape, the most brutal rapist actually has knowledgeable lawyers and
activists pleading for his acquittal because he is a juvenile. Underage he
might have been, but in mental years, he was older that Methuselah himself, as
he used modes of torture that even hardened criminals might have hesitated to
use! And yet, shamefully, he actually had people on his side, as does almost every
felon who has been sentenced to Death Row.

Patently
evident, and painfully so, is the fact that India has turned into a soft state,
a state soft on criminals, corrupt politicians and the venal wealthy. However,
the common man, the helpless and the poor have no means to evade justice, even
for a petty theft. The police serve the ruling class, stomping heavily on those
who cannot serve their purpose. Every time there is a horrifying case of
rape or brutality, determined protesters come on to the streets, trying to
bolster public support and sympathy. But this ends in a one-way street, with no
support from the politicians, who pay lip service with put-on accents as they lisp,
“We will find the perpetrators, and let law take its own course!"

Unfortunately,
by the time law gets out of bed, puts on its socks and decides to take a stand,
all the clues are lost, as in the Aarushi case, or the afflicted people have
lost heart, as their loved ones have gone beyond the pale, leaving behind pain
and anguish. The 23-year-old girl’s case shook not only the nation, but the
whole world, but even today, seasoned lawyers argue about whether the main
accused, Ram Singh, committed suicide or was murdered in jail. And shrill
social activists argue about whether the death sentence will really deter
people from committing crimes like rape and murder. This is just the point! The four ‘adult’
rapists in the 23-year-old’s case have been given the death sentence, maybe
because the entire nation rose up in arms against them.

The “most
unkindest cut of all” is when these same activists argue about the human rights
of the criminals, who have got away with heinous crimes. What human rights are
we talking about here? Don't victims who have suffered at the hands of these
monsters have the right to be avenged?

The ones who protest the loudest are those who,
most often, have never undergone the agony of having their loved ones cut down
in youth. They have never been parents who have lovingly nurtured their young
ones to adulthood, only to lose them to crazed sex maniacs. Or faced a
living death when their innocent little babies are raped and brutalized by men
whose wives have gone away for a vacation! They have not seen their
daughters turn into vegetables because ward boys have raped them in hospital,
or witnessed their daughters' beautiful faces eaten away with acid, and left
blind and helpless, because of rejected men with huge egos.

Even
as we debate endlessly, more rapes take place every day. An eighteen year old
German teenager was recently raped on a train, and a fifty one year old Danish
woman gang raped that very week. According to an official document, rape cases
in Delhi have doubled in 2013 and molestation has gone up by almost four times.
A new Chief Minister is at the helm in Delhi, with all the right motives behind
him, but methinks he is getting a trifle swayed by the not-so-right motives at
the moment. One gets a sense of the one-eyed man leading the blind! May he
settle down soon and actually go after the corrupt and the cruel, the reason
why he was voted into power.

Whom do we blame finally? The politicians who
pull the strings, and turn a blind eye; the police who react to wires pulled by
their masters; the silent bystander who allows crimes to be committed before
his eyes, where lone girls are molested by gangs of men, and drives his vehicle
away in haste when he sees a woman and her six month old baby dying on the
road, despite the pleas of a hapless husband.

Do we
blame the law of the land that has no harsh deterrent that could stop these
criminals in their tracks? Or the advocates who cry foul at every juncture,
putting a spoke in the wheels of justice?

Or do we just form strong silent groups and take
tough measures to keep ourselves and the people round us safe and secure? After
all, self help is the best help, and the day we stop being mere onlookers and
dumb witnesses, and take action against those who break the law and harm
others, criminals might think twice before they commit crimes. And that
might just be the difference between life and death!

Deepti
Menon has always believed in the power of the pen. Having done her post
graduation in English Literature and her B.Ed. in English, she had the option
of teaching and writing, and did both with great enjoyment. She started writing
at the age of ten, long before she acquired a Diploma in Journalism. Deepti
also had the advantage of being an Army kid, and later an Army wife, and loved
the idea of travelling around India, meeting new people and acquiring new
skills. She firmly believes that much of her personality was honed during those
travels. For Deepti, writing needs to sparkle with simplicity and originality,
and she strives to find that one word that conveys her ideas most meaningfully
to her readers. She believes that Mark Twain had the right idea when he said,
“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the
difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”